The Beach That Is My Sill

From where I sit in my deep sand-coloured armchair
It is but a dusty plank of wood
Muscovado ridge gleaming in the light
Beyond the western wind
Waves and waves through the elders leaves

I come here in the morning dusk
I watch the seagulls as they circle past
The scaffolding of the blue gas lace
Sometimes, when the world is quiet
I walk along the window sill
And I collect the washed up drifts
From the night ebb and flow

This is to the transmutant Orbitor
Come ashore here in October
I had wedged it in two thousand and six
Between Crusoe and The Stranger
Somewhere else in another house

Three months ago in January
Irving's Owen Meany ran aground
A few inches away
Sandwiched between Child Gardens and
Inheritors by W Golding

Just yesterday breathing the night
It was about bed time
I stumbled upon Kafka's Castle
Lost to the sea ten years ago

I picked it up. And here I am
All my best reading plans upset
By a night stroll on
The beach that is my window sill